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Eleven books by a shoemaker of Görlitz who wrote, by his own account, because he could not help it. Ten of them stand here in the seventeenth-century English of John Sparrow, who translated Boehme within a generation of his death and whose prose is itself now four hundred years old; where that English has drifted out of reach, the facing pane carries a modern register — the same text with archaic inflection and spelling normalised by rule, never paraphrased. Nothing is reworded, and where no register appears beside a passage it is because the rules found nothing to change.
The eleventh book is not in English at all, and it is the reason this note exists.
Des trois principes de l'essence divine, printed at Paris in 1802, is the same work as Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence, which stands here as the second book — the same twenty-seven chapters in the same order, opening `Du premier principe de l'essence divine` against Sparrow's `Of the first Principle of the Divine Essence`. Its translator was Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, who gave the last years of his life to putting Boehme into French, and who has a shelf of his own in this Lycaeum.
That makes a closed circuit inside this archive, and it is worth naming plainly. Saint-Martin translates Boehme. La Iniciación, printed in Montevideo a hundred and forty years later, traces its own descent through Saint-Martin. A reader can therefore follow one thread from a German mystic of 1619, through the French philosopher who carried him into another language, to a Spanish-language monthly of the 1940s that claimed them both — and read every step of it in the original.
The two are shelved as one work rather than two because that is what they are. They are not set as facing panes: an English translation of 1619 and a French translation of 1802 are two independent readings of a lost German original, and pairing them line by line would assert a correspondence neither translator ever claimed.
141. Jacob says, Thou art he: thy brethren will praise thee. In this he looks outwardly upon the earthly kingdom, which should arise in the future time: and inwardly he looks upon the kingdom of Christ, which both Jews and heathen would embrace, and praise and honour Christ as God and Man. 42. And he says further, For thy hand will be upon the neck of thy enemies. By this he understands and means, not only the Jews' outward enemies; but that the hand, viz. the power of Christ's grace, would essentially, actually and effectually be upon the neck of Satan, and the Serpent's poison and will, in flesh and blood, and evermore trample upon that Serpent's head in his children of faith. 43. Also, Thy father's children will bow before thee. That is, before this Christ of the stock or tribe of Judah will all the children of God stoop, bow, and pray to, as a God-Man and Man-God. 44. Also, Judah is a young lion. That is, one roaring against the devil, and a destroyer of death and hell, as a fresh, young nimble lion, mighty in strength and power. 45. Also, Thou art come aloft, my son, exalted, by a great victory. That is, after he had the victory over God's anger, over death, sin, the devil and hell, he was placed at the right hand of God's power, as a Man- God, and rules over all his enemies.
246. Also, He stooped and couched down, as a lion, and as a lioness, Who will set upon him to rouse him up! That is, he has so deeply humbled himself with his highest love, and rendered himself in our assumed humanity into the scorn and contempt of the fallen man, and stooped into God's anger, and suffered the natural life to break in pieces, and very patiently given his strong lion's might thereinto. 47. But that the text says, as a lion and as a lioness, it signifies the young lion of the divine Word in the soul, and the lioness signifies the name Jesus, in the most inward ground of the heavenly world's substance, viz. the noble lioness of Sophia, that is, the right seed of the woman from the Adamical light's tincture, which faded in Adam, and in this lion was made living again in divine power, and associated itself again to the lion, viz. to the soul. 48. Also, Who will set upon him to rouse him up! That is, who can set himself against this lion and heavenly holy lioness to rouse them up, which are God over all and through all? Who will take away his power, Who is the beginning of all power, strength and might? Where is the champion that can strive when there is no higher power to be had? 49. Also, The sceptre shall not he removed from Judah, nor a master from under his feet, till the Champion or Saviour come; and to him will the people cleave.
3The understanding or meaning of this is twofold, viz. outwardly concerning the kingdom of Judah, that the Jewish sceptre of its kingdom should continue, and they be a kingdom, till this Champion or Saviour, viz. the lion with the lioness, viz. Christ, that is, this Covenant, should become man; which is so come to pass that they held their kingdom, though it seemed of ten as it were quite overthrown, till Christ. And then it quite ceased, and there was another Master or Governor that ruled it, for since that time they must be servile people; for the Champion or Saviour has taken to himself their kingdom, and is therewith entered in among the heathen, and has called them also to himself. 50. But the inward ground is this: that the kingdom of Christ, and his dominion over sin, death, the devil and hell, will not cease, nor any other ruler or master come from between his feet, that is, from the Covenant of God, till this Saviour, Christ, should come again to judgment, and sever his enemies: then shall he deliver up the kingdom again to his Father, and then God shall be All in All. Therefore do the Jews in vain hope for another master or ruler: although indeed he will come to them also in the time of his revelation, manifestation or appearing, which time is near, wherein the kingdom of Christ will be manifested to all people. 51. Also, To him will the people cleave. This is done already according
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
141. Jacob says, Thou art he: thy brethren will praise thee. In this he looks outwardly upon the earthly kingdom, which should arise in the future time: and inwardly he looks upon the kingdom of Christ, which both Jews and heathen would embrace, and praise and honour Christ as God and Man. 42. And he says further, For thy hand will be upon the neck of thy enemies. By this he understands and means, not only the Jews' outward enemies; but that the hand, viz. the power of Christ's grace, would essentially, actually and effectually be upon the neck of Satan, and the Serpent's poison and will, in flesh and blood, and evermore trample upon that Serpent's head in his children of faith. 43. Also, Thy father's children will bow before thee. That is, before this Christ of the stock or tribe of Judah will all the children of God stoop, bow, and pray to, as a God-Man and Man-God. 44. Also, Judah is a young lion. That is, one roaring against the devil, and a destroyer of death and hell, as a fresh, young nimble lion, mighty in strength and power. 45. Also, Thou art come aloft, my son, exalted, by a great victory. That is, after he had the victory over God's anger, over death, sin, the devil and hell, he was placed at the right hand of God's power, as a Man- God, and rules over all his enemies.
246. Also, He stooped and couched down, as a lion, and as a lioness, Who will set upon him to rouse him up! That is, he has so deeply humbled himself with his highest love, and rendered himself in our assumed humanity into the scorn and contempt of the fallen man, and stooped into God's anger, and suffered the natural life to break in pieces, and very patiently given his strong lion's might thereinto. 47. But that the text says, as a lion and as a lioness, it signifies the young lion of the divine Word in the soul, and the lioness signifies the name Jesus, in the most inward ground of the heavenly world's substance, viz. the noble lioness of Sophia, that is, the right seed of the woman from the Adamical light's tincture, which faded in Adam, and in this lion was made living again in divine power, and associated itself again to the lion, viz. to the soul. 48. Also, Who will set upon him to rouse him up! That is, who can set himself against this lion and heavenly holy lioness to rouse them up, which are God over all and through all? Who will take away his power, Who is the beginning of all power, strength and might? Where is the champion that can strive when there is no higher power to be had? 49. Also, The sceptre shall not he removed from Judah, nor a master from under his feet, till the Champion or Saviour come; and to him will the people cleave.
3The understanding or meaning of this is twofold, viz. outwardly concerning the kingdom of Judah, that the Jewish sceptre of its kingdom should continue, and they be a kingdom, till this Champion or Saviour, viz. the lion with the lioness, viz. Christ, that is, this Covenant, should become man; which is so come to pass that they held their kingdom, though it seemed of ten as it were quite overthrown, till Christ. And then it quite ceased, and there was another Master or Governor that ruled it, for since that time they must be servile people; for the Champion or Saviour has taken to himself their kingdom, and is therewith entered in among the heathen, and has called them also to himself. 50. But the inward ground is this: that the kingdom of Christ, and his dominion over sin, death, the devil and hell, will not cease, nor any other ruler or master come from between his feet, that is, from the Covenant of God, till this Saviour, Christ, should come again to judgment, and sever his enemies: then shall he deliver up the kingdom again to his Father, and then God shall be All in All. Therefore do the Jews in vain hope for another master or ruler: although indeed he will come to them also in the time of his revelation, manifestation or appearing, which time is near, wherein the kingdom of Christ will be manifested to all people. 51. Also, To him will the people cleave. This is done already according
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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